Phantoms of the Otherworld (In Spiritu Et Veritate)
Page 13
Her mom held back a smirk as she gave Abby a stern look and a warning. “Language.” If she could read her mom’s mind though, she was sure her mother would have agreed. “Want to elaborate?”
She sighed, this time more in a calming manner than out of frustration. “He doesn’t think we should keep the werewolves involved with new information, and I think they really need to be involved. It’s not fair if one of them is in danger and they don’t have all the information we do.”
Her mother gave a small, knowing smile. “You hate getting involved with your father’s politics, why so concerned with who’s kept up to speed?”
“Just because. They could be helpful,” Abby lied, not doing a good job of holding back a smirk, as she knew that though her mom couldn’t read her thoughts, she could read her expression.
Her mom laughed at her reluctance. “You’re not going to tell me are you?”
Abby shook her head, glad that her mom couldn’t read her mind. That was one of the reasons they were so close. They were both telepathic, but couldn’t hear each other. She’d always been told it was like trying to communicate on walkie-talkies when you’re both pushing down the talk button, nothing would get through.
“No, I should get going.” Abby hopped off the desk and shot the rubber band across the room. “I would avoid him for a while though. He’s probably still pissed off.”
“Noted.” Her mom laughed as she hugged her goodbye. “Oh, Lahni stopped in and wanted to talk to you before you leave. She’s in her office. I think she had another vision.”
Abby smiled thankfully and took off down the hall toward Lahni’s office. It was a lot smaller than her father’s, but Lahni took the care to make it comfortable. The door was open when Abby got there, and Lahni was waiting for her at the desk.
“Hey, Lahni,” she greeted the woman. “My mom said you were looking for me?”
“I was, yes. I had another vision today.” Lahni folded her hands in her lap as she sat back in her chair.
“And?” Abby questioned, as usual all she could see from the psychic’s mind was a muddled mess of images that made no sense to her.
“You know, the usual. Just a bunch of pictures and words.” Lahni leaned forward, her voice growing more serious. “There was a phrase that very much stuck out to me though. It slays the beast within.”
“It slays the beast within,” Abby repeated, thinking hard about what it could mean. “The beast, a werewolf?” Lahni nodded. “Something will kill a werewolf. What will? Vampires?”
“I’m not sure,” Lahni admitted. “But there’s something else. Everything is in multiples of three. Three pairs of eyes. Three times that phrase was repeated.” She waited to see if Abby would catch on to what she was hinting at. “Three werewolves…”
Abby’s eyebrows furrowed bitterly. “Three? They want three wolves.” She was already having a hard time grasping the concept of a vampire trying to catch a werewolf, and now they wanted three? “We just need to figure out which ones they want right?”
Lahni nodded her agreement. “I suppose. I’d assume they’d go for the weakest three. Though I don’t know any of the werewolves like you do.”
The weakest three. Abby’s heart dropped. Kyla was the newest werewolf, and therefore would be one of the weakest. “Yeah, I think I know who they’d go after. They already gave one away by attacking last night. Nathan was his name. There’s Kyla, she’s the newest, and so she’s not as experienced. Same with Lacey, she’s the youngest, and the smallest.” Abby began to pace at the edge of the desk. “I need to let them know, we need to warn them.”
Lahni’s face wrinkled in concern. “The yelling was muffled through the walls, but it did sound like your father told you not to involve them.”
“They’re already involved, Lahni. You can’t really expect me not to tell them.” Abby raised an eyebrow in sarcastic challenge, making an attempt to lighten the tone of her statement.
“I don’t expect you to. So I know nothing about it.” Lahni winked and let out a nervous chuckle.
Abby grinned and winked back. “Nothing about what?”
After saying goodbye to Lahni and her mother, Abby rushed to her car to get back to the school. She knew Kyla went out for runs about every other night. It was already getting dark, but she hoped Kyla hadn’t left just yet. She also hoped that Kyla, or any of the other werewolves for that matter, never went running alone.
Abby shivered as she sat down in the cold driver’s seat of her car and cranked up the heat. For the first few minutes of the drive she might as well have had the air conditioning on. From The Council’s office it took about fifteen minutes for her to get back to the school while driving as fast as she could without risking a speeding ticket. That was the last thing she needed to argue with her father about. She hastily parked and made her way up the elevator and down the hall to Kyla’s dorm room, knocking as urgently as she could without sounding rude.
“Good, you’re here.” She couldn’t hold back a grin as Kyla opened the door.
“Yeah, I was just about to go for a run. Is something wrong?” Kyla opened the door a little wider, motioning for Abby to come in and then closed it behind them.
Abby took a seat in the chair at Kyla’s desk while Kyla sat and dangled her legs over the side of the bed. “I just came from my father’s office. We found out some news about the vampire attacks.” Kyla’s head cocked curiously, but she waited silently for Abby to continue. “The psychic kept hearing the phrase, ‘it slays the beast within.’ I don’t know why they were trying to catch Nathan, but he probably wouldn’t have been alive for long if they had, and he wasn’t the only werewolf the vampires want. They want three.”
“Three?” Abby didn’t have to read Kyla’s mind to hear the concern in her voice. “You guys don’t know which three?”
“No,” Abby shook her head. “But, if you were trying to catch werewolves, you’d probably go for the weakest ones, right?”
She sat silently while Kyla thought about each of the Pack werewolves, her mind coming to conclusions about which three were the weakest, herself being one of them. “So, Nathan, me, and?”
“Lacey?”
“Oh,” Kyla said slowly, and nodded in agreement. “What now?”
Abby shrugged. “Well, you should probably let the rest of the Pack know, and unless you’re here, the three of you probably shouldn’t go out alone. I figure me or Camille could always be with you, and some of the others could be with Lacey and Nathan?”
God I’m sick of this shit. Abby cringed at the first hint of frustration from the werewolf, and feeling bad that Kyla would have to be babysat, she tried to lighten the mood. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it fun. It’ll hardly be like anything is different.”
Kyla sighed and gave an uneasily forced smile. “I guess. What happens if I’m with you and we get attacked?”
She smiled at the fact that Kyla’s dark green eyes were full of concern for her safety. “Hey, I may not be the tallest, strongest looking person, but I can hold my own.”
Kyla laughed lightheartedly as she stood up to usher Abby toward the door, and glared teasingly. “I won’t believe it until I see it.”
“Watch yourself, or you’ll find out the hard way,” Abby challenged playfully as she walked to the door. She was about to leave, but something was keeping her in place, and Kyla looked at her expectantly, patiently waiting for her to say whatever she was about to. “Would you want to have dinner with me?” Abby instantly regretted the question. It was completely out of context, but her mouth formed the words before her brain could stop her.
“Like a date?” Kyla’s eyes inadvertently darted around the room, and Abby felt guilty for putting her on the spot. She could hear that the girl’s first instinct was to say no, but while she was obviously hesitant, she wasn’t entirely unwilling.
“Or not, we could just go to dinner. Or lunch, if that would be better,” Abby said hastily, trying to ease Kyla’s feelings about it.
Abby nodded and smiled reassuringly. “Not a date, just dinner. Monday night, I’ll get you at five.”
As Abby said goodbye, she couldn’t deny that having a date declined was a bit stinging to her ego, but she knew that while Kyla obviously found her attractive, the girl still had feelings for Camille. She didn’t know exactly how deep those feelings went, as Kyla clearly tried not to think about it whenever they were together. Either way, she couldn’t say she expected anything more or less from an entirely young friendship. Dinner was a start.
“What the?” I rubbed my eyes tiredly as I got out of bed and looked out the window.
I thought the campus seemed unusually loud for a Sunday morning, and now I could see why. The round street in the center of all the dormitory buildings had been closed off, and was now filled with various booths of all kinds of bright colors. The booths stretched father than I could see, and I assumed it spread all the way to the actual school campus – some kind of fair maybe. I hurriedly ran a brush through my unruly blonde hair, and pulled on my clothes and shoes. I was halfway out the door when a small box on the desk caught my eye, and I mentally scolded myself for almost forgetting. Last week I’d called my dad and asked him to add a cell phone to our plan for Kyla, and I’d just gotten it in the mail yesterday. As fast as I could I tore open the box, shoved in the battery, and called my own phone so I would have the new number. Then I bolted out the door.
Everything seemed like a race with Kyla lately. I was always in a hurry to be the first one to her dorm in the morning. I had to get there before Abby did so we wouldn’t have to vie for the girl’s affection. It was probably torture, trying so hard to spend so much time with Kyla, the one person I wanted and the one person who didn’t want me. I don’t know why tried so hard to convince myself it was better than not seeing her at all. Maybe it’s because I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Finally reaching her room, I knocked on the door, sighing with relief when I heard mumbling from inside.
Kyla opened up, looking so tired that she had to lean on the handle for support, and blinked hard when she saw me. “Are you insane? Why are you awake?”
I laughed and followed her back into the room, closing the door behind me. “There’s a fair or something today. Did you hear anything about it?”
“No,” she said groggily, but she peered outside anyway, and her eyes widened a bit in excitement. “Looks like fun though.”
I lay back on her bed and stared at the ceiling while she changed out of her pajamas, trying not to torture myself by sneaking a peek. “By the way, before we left yesterday, Wesley told me that he was going to be busy today. He said we should go by for training sometime tonight.”
“Good, that means I can come back and take a nap,” Kyla said, already grinning at the idea.
I sat up, watching her patiently as she tied her shoelaces. Then, remembering the extra cell phone in my pocket, I pulled it out and handed it to her. “From my dad. I already put the number in my phone.”
“Oh.” She took the phone, looking it over happily before shoving it into her pocket. “I’ll have to call and say thanks. You ready to go?”
I nodded and followed her all the way out of the building. We stopped at a little ticket booth that said ‘Fair For Charity’, and as I bought multiple tickets for Kyla and I, I thought about how vague that sounded. Throughout the morning a few times we played the game where you try to knock down a stack of bottles with a baseball. Neither of us was able to win a single thing until finally Kyla played the game where you try to throw a ping-pong ball into a cup with water and a goldfish in it. What did she win for accomplishing the amazing feat? A goldfish. Which she happily gave away to the first small kid she saw.
Neither of us talked much. Lately I’d been finding it hard to find anything to say. Every time we had a conversation she tried to say something about breaking up with me, but I didn’t want to hear it. There was never passion or determination in her eyes when she was about to bring it up, only sadness and hesitation. Apologizing to me wouldn’t take away the hurt. Nor would it make it easier for us to be friends. However, when I told her how I really felt the other night, she seemed to have taken my words to heart. She hadn’t seemed about to bring it up since.
During the times the heartbreak-pain wasn’t overwhelming I was happy just being able to hang out with Kyla. When she’d broken up with me she’d implied that it was because she realized she wasn’t really into girls. But I got the feeling there was more than a friendly connection between her and Abby. If she was just confused, spending time with her could be my way of convincing her I was the right choice all along.
“You hungry?” I asked as Kyla threw her last basketball toward the far away hoop. My stomach had been rumbling for the past half hour, but it had just gotten strong enough to do something about.
Her smile widened ear to ear at the mention of food. “Always.”
I glanced around at the various booths to see which had the biggest meals. Most of them were small lemonade stands, or were serving cheesecake and ice cream. Finally I spotted a stand with hotdogs, and eagerly led Kyla over to it. After ordering a few each we sat down at a little picnic table to eat, or more accurately wolf down, our food. I took the opportunity to carefully study each of the booths that hadn’t caught my eye in the first place. There was one with an artist who would draw you in a caricature, and a couple from organizations handing out free items.
“Have you ever been to a fortune teller?” I asked, my eyes now glued to the booth across from us.
Kyla glanced over her shoulder to where I was looking. “No, but we should go do it.”
I nodded in agreement, and after we polished off our hotdogs we made our way to the fortuneteller’s booth. The psychic was an older woman. Her shoulder length, graying hair accentuated her ambiguous green eyes. When she noticed we were making our way to her she gave a friendly smile, and then sat us in a pair of chairs across a small table from her own.
“How are you ladies doing?” she asked, and both Kyla and I went with the flow of the formal greeting, answering with ‘fine, and you?’. Aside from that she didn’t waste time getting into what she was there to do. “Would you like your palms read, or a tarot card reading?”
I looked over at Kyla questioningly, but she didn’t seem sure either, so I shrugged. “I’ve never had my palm read.”
“Ah, good, good. Go ahead and lay your hands on the table for me, palm side up.” The woman waited patiently for me to do so, and then gently took my left hand in her own. “So warm, and soft too. You’re a sensitive one, huh?” I heard Kyla laugh as she mumbled ‘marshmallow,’ an inside joke her and Luna had about just how sensitive I was, and I gave her a playful glare. The psychic then ran her finger along the topmost line of my hand. “This one is your heart line. It starts here, under your index finger, which tells me you like security in your relationships. The line is deep, like your emotions. It’s also long, and straight. While you handle your emotions fairly well, you have a tendency to be jealous.”
I blushed at the reminder of what had happened at Eli’s a couple days ago, and passed a stealthy glance over at Kyla to see if she was thinking the same thing. I could agree I was a jealous person. That was why I’d yelled at Abby, because I hated seeing Kyla with another girl. Even though she’d said they were just hanging out, Abby’s scent was all over her that night. I couldn’t be sure exactly how Kyla felt about Abby, but I could see the way Abby looked at her, and it made me fume.
The psychic finished going through the other various lines on my hand, and then asked Kyla to put her hands on the table. “Interesting,” the woman mumbled to herself as she grabbed Kyla’s hand.
“What’s interesting?” Kyla asked, but the psychic ignored the question and began running her fingers along the
creases of Kyla’s hands.
I zoned out for most of Kyla’s reading while I surveyed the rest of the area we were in. So many people crowded the booths and food stands that there was no way all of them were from our school alone. This had to be a countywide fair. As I scanned the grounds, a familiar tuft of dirty blonde hair not far off caught my eye, and my gaze met Abby’s. I didn’t know if the girl had been staring at me or we’d caught each other’s eye at the same time, but now I just kept looking, as did she.
I felt a fair amount of competition from her since we were chasing after the same girl, and Abby had the upper hand seeing as Kyla broke up with me in the first place. Regardless, I was no longer mad about our exchange at Eli’s a few days earlier, nor did it appear Abby was upset. The other girl wasn’t glaring. Her eyes weren’t hard or stern, or hateful. They were considerably thoughtful and soft, and maybe even a bit confused. It made my own eyebrows furrow in confusion. Abby had every reason to glare at me – our competition over Kyla, or the fact that I’d insulted her and yelled at her being just two of the reasons. Instead, she turned up the corner of her mouth in a small smile and walked away.
“Your life line,” I turned my attention back to the woman who was pointing to the third of the deep lines on Kyla’s hand. “It is very short, and deep. The depth indicates vitality. You’re healthy, but the shortness of it indicates an early death.” She ran a single finger down the line. “A death already past.” I leaned forward curiously as the woman’s eyes grew terribly thoughtful, and she poked at the teeth-mark scars on Kyla’s hand. “Not cold-skinned at all, and you have a heartbeat.” The woman leaned forward a bit too, whispering to us ominously. “Werewolf?” Both Kyla and I’s jaws dropped simultaneously, and the woman let out an amused laugh, her voice growing informal. “I’m Lahni, the psychic of The Supernatural Board.”
“Oh,” Kyla let out a sigh of relief. “Abby mentioned you.”